Because of the unpleasant taste of many pharmaceuticals or nutritional supplements, flavorings alone or in combination with sweetening agents have been employed to improve taste and palatability. Flavorings and sweetening agents, however, are not satisfactorily effective against bitter tasting substances and/or actives.
Various delivery vehicles for taste masking or taste-modifying the delivery of pharmaceuticals or nutritional supplements have been employed, such as flavored liquid suspensions, coatings on pharmaceutical tablets and/or capsules, and even dissolvable films. However, in each of these situations, the substance to be masked is present at the time of delivery of the taste masking or modifying substance. For example, dissolvable films have been used to deliver pharmaceutical actives to children and to deliver breath-freshening agents such as menthol. In both instances, the substance to be taste-masked was either present in the formulation itself or was already present, which makes developing taste masking formulations easier.
Semen is a semi-variable, yet specific chemical composition that includes at least one bitter tasting substance. Semen typically includes approximately 150 mg of protein, 11 mg of carbohydrate, 6 mg of fat, 3 mg of cholesterol, and trace amounts of ascorbic acid, calcium, chlorine, choline, citric acid, creatine, deoxyribonucleic acid, fructose, glutathione, hyaluronidase, inositol, lactic acid, magnesium, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, purine, pyrimidine, pyruvic acid, selenium, sodium, sorbitol, vitamin B12, and zinc. One factor that makes semen variable is the diet of the individual.
Semen is a complex composition for which to formulate a taste masking composition, especially to make it universally effective on a semi-variable composition. Furthermore, the formulation must account for the unpredictable timing of the delivery of the semen, which depends upon sexual stimulation. These factors complicate the formulation of an effective composition and a delivery vehicle that can provide the needed taste masking effect at the appropriate time.